A Sampling Of Editorial Opinion

September 06, 1997

DUNLOP'S REPUTATION

Republican James S. Gilmore III is now one of many Virginians who view Becky Norton Dunlop as a threat to the environment - or at least he considers her a political albatross he doesn't want hanging around his neck Nov. 4. If elected governor he says she will no longer be secretary of natural resources.

That's great news.

Democratic candidate Donald S. Beyer Jr. has already promised to get rid of her, so regardless of who wins the election, Dunlop is on the way out.

Dunlop has only herself to blame. She has presided over an evisceration of the Department of Environmental Quality that has business leaders and environmentalists complaining and the EPA threatening to take away Virginia's power to enforce federal regulations.

Dunlop, who says she planned to leave anyway, seems incapable of accepting the fact that she's a political appointee whose performance over the past four years is subject to evaluation by both candidates for governor. Here's how she reacted when Gilmore said she won't be reappointed:

``It demonstrates a character flaw when you personally besmirch another's reputation for your own political gain. Jim Gilmore made a mistake by trying to damage my reputation for his personal political gain. I think he will regret he did it.''

Gilmore did not damage Dunlop's reputation as secretary of natural resources.

She did.

- The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg

THE FOP FACTOR

The Fraternal Order of Police has endorsed the Democratic ticket. Virginians missing the original story needn't feel left out. They'll be hearing all about it from now to Election Day. Commercials, mailers, speeches, and soundbites will remind voters that the cops support Don Beyer, L.F. Payne and Bill Dolan. The FOP endorsement will be likened to a blessing from the Holy See.

The FOP gave the Democrats their first truly good news of an incoherent campaign. According to the news accounts, the FOP based its decision to a considerable degree not on issues relating directly to law and order but on issues relating to worker's compensation. For the Democrats, the whys don't matter. The FOP's seal of approval is enough.

The GOP's best line of defense is to remind voters that if the 1993 election had gone the other way - i.e. if George Allen and Jim Gilmore had not won - then Virginia would not have abolished parole. No-parole stands as the generation's most important reform regarding criminal justice. The Democratic ticket has an endorsement; the Republican ticket has a record of accomplishment.

- Richmond Times-Dispatch

PRINCESS DIANA'S DEATH

The young woman who died in a Paris hospital at the end of the summer of 1997, had been, from the day almost two decades ago when she entered the public's consciousness as the wife-to-be of the heir to the British throne, the central figure in a gripping and continuously unfolding drama. It was part ``fairy tale'' and romance, as no one ever tired of saying, but in larger part we think, contemporary morality play, as well - and nothing if not searingly up to date.

Princess Diana, as one commentator observed, grew into an identifiable human being in the course of her miserable marriage and its aftermath, as distinct from the innocent, happy, almost fictional abstraction she had seemed to be at the beginning of the public's fascination with her. Behind all the luxury and glamour and high-style, she seemed to be dealing in the 1997 way with the familiar personal issues that so many others face. She was breathtakingly unconventional by traditional standards of propriety and role-modelship. At the same time she was deeply engaged in good works and proved it by taking real personal risks in the pursuit of her different causes. She was insistent that her children gain an unroyal appreciation of something approximating normal life. And she was famous for her ability to connect naturally and empathetically with others who lived far outside the beautiful-people universe she inhabited.

The conduct of the ``paparazzi'' was said to have been particularly reckless on Saturday night, but the hounding, harassing role of these ruthless junkies, who supply the tabloids, the rest of the media and the public with the photos they - we - all simultaneously seem to crave and denounce - is a separate question for another day.

- The Washington Post

REFORM CAN BE MADE

The challenge of cleaning up the nation's corrupt campaign finance system is bearing down again on the congressional agenda. Many lawmakers who have thrived by the system would like the public to believe that the chances of reforming it are nil. That is not true. The hearings led by Sen. Fred Thompson resume with a new cast of experts likely to shed light on current problems. No less important, reform legislation sponsored by Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Russell Feingold of Wisconsin is being drafted to reflect the concerns of lawmakers and groups who might well generate new momentum for the cause.